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Cobrinha exclusive: “Jiu-Jitsu needs more penalties for stalling”

Cobrinha exclusive: “Jiu-Jitsu needs more penalties for stalling” - Cobrinha on the attack / Photo: John Lamonica, 2010
Our GMA Rubens Charles Maciel, aka Cobrinha, returned to work at his new academy in California after scoring a bronze medal at the 2011 Worlds – his first as a black belt in the featherweight division, where he has amassed four golds and one silver.
However pleased about Alliance&#8217;s conquest of a sixth world title as a team by a large margin (127 points), the superstar also had criticism to voice and analysis to share about his matches and, of course, his 4-2 loss to Augusto “Tanquinho” Mendes in the semifinal (takedown and sweep versus sweep). Rafael Mendes would triumph to become (two-time) champion.
PREPARATION:
“I felt great in my matches; I was prepared to fight anyone. And that&#8217;s what I imagine every fighter should prepare for, of course. At the same time, it brings me to ask the same question I repeat to myself at every championship, and perhaps you can answer it for me. If everyone&#8217;s training to exhaustion to face any opponent, why&#8217;s there so much stalling going on? Having motionless matches goes against the very objective and philosophy of Jiu-Jitsu itself, which is to always pursue the finish. If you take a close look, free-flowing matches were in the minority.”
THE LOSS:
“One example of a motionless match was mine with Tanquinho in the semifinals. Of course he&#8217;s an athlete who competes by using the rules in his favor. Please, I&#8217;m not trying to take any credit from him, much less complain about something that can&#8217;t be undone. But that match was a good example of it, of how the rules work against the spectacle. Furthermore, we can&#8217;t forget about the &#8216;influence&#8217; on the refereeing. I feel, like a lot of good folks do, that if you don&#8217;t want to get hindered by the refereeing, you have to go for the finish. But what about when it&#8217;s impossible to achieve because your opponent falls back on evasive maneuvers? And what about when you get to a good position and he runs away to have the match restarted on the feet? Such attitudes should be penalized more severely, in my opinion.”
PENALTIES:
“I feel minor modifications can change Jiu-Jitsu in a big way, make it more attractive. I look at other fight sports, like judo and taekwondo and even MMA – the rules are frequently revised so as to improve the spectacle, which is the matches, making it more appealing to the public to watch. That hasn&#8217;t happened in Jiu-Jitsu yet. There still isn&#8217;t much by way of penalization for stalling and certain positions, like the 50/50, which aren&#8217;t shunned because some people consider them to be innovative. Nobody does anything, the matches are motionless, they&#8217;re just waiting for time to run out. I don&#8217;t believe that&#8217;s what we want for our sport, is it? How can we promote Jiu-Jitsu and get it to grow even further with situations like that? The organizers promote the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship and we, the athletes, should promote the spectacle. But that&#8217;s not what&#8217;s happening these days, unfortunately. That&#8217;s why I feel the rules should be revised to help change the athletes&#8217; mentality, so they&#8217;ll look to have free-flowing, open matches, improving the spectacle and drawing spectators and subsequently sponsors, making Jiu-Jitsu grow. At least that&#8217;s what I hope for as a fighter, teacher, and as someone running a business in the field (of Jiu-Jitsu).”